“I may as well take a rocking chair back there,” Doumit said after the Twins’ 6-1 win over the Boston Red Sox. “He makes it real easy.”

Diamond, making just his fifth start since December elbow surgery, carved up the potent lineup of the team that entered with the majors’ best record. The stylish lefty allowed just three hits and no walks over seven shutout innings to lower his earned-run average to 3.03.

Diamond (3-2) surrendered leadoff singles in his first three innings but pitched out of the mini-jam each time. Once he settled in, the returning 12-game winner retired his final 15 batters before being lifted at 96 pitches.

Josh Roenicke finished up with two solid innings of one-run ball.

Diamond would have liked to go longer but said he understood the reasoning of Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson.

“I was geared up to go,” Diamond said. “After talking to them about it, I think it was a smart decision, especially after the way the eighth played out. This is really early.”

Three Red Sox errors led to four insurance runs in the Twins eighth. One of those came on a fielder’s choice grounder when the return throw from catcher to first hit Doumit’s leg and skittered past Mike Napoli.

Doumit, who came in hitting .198, banged out two hits and scored two runs, including his first homer of the season. That opposite-field shot over the Green Monster came off Red Sox starter Ryan Dempster (2-3) and had to survive a video review to see if a fan had reached over the wall to interfere.

“I was about to George Brett,” Doumit joked of a possible overturn.

The homer stood, but it was Doumit’s work behind the plate that drew raves from Diamond, who has now been paired with the backup catcher in all but one start this season. The exception was an April 26 loss to the Texas Rangers, when Diamond allowed 12 hits in 6 1/3 innings.

“I have to commend Doumit,” Diamond said. “He was locked and loaded. We were able to be right in sync. We had a good approach going in. We knew what we were going to be throwing. He did a great job .”

Doumit repaid the compliment, calling the 26-year-old Canadian “one of the most prepared pitchers I’ve ever been around” across nine big-league seasons.

“He has a game plan every time out and he sticks to it,” Doumit said. “He doesn’t waver. Nights like these are fun. That’s’ a really good baseball team over there. For him to only give up three hits against that lineup is pretty impressive.”

Diamond is always around the strike zone, but he was able to throw strike one to nine straight batters during one stretch and he ran just five three-ball counts all night.

“Mentally I was just incredibly aggressive,” Diamond said. “I wanted to come out of the gate and throw hard and just try to locate.”

Diamond’s fastball sat in the 89-90 mph range most of the night but he hit 91 mph during a nine-pitch duel with Napoli, his final batter of the night, before inducing one of five groundouts to shortstop Jamey Carroll.

Carroll, at 39 years, two months and 19 days, padded his own record as the oldest player ever to start at shortstop for the Twins. Carroll made 36 starts at shortstop last year, but the last one came on Aug. 15.

The big pitch for Diamond, Doumit said, was his cut fastball.

“He’s a guy that’s going to pitch off his cutter,” Doumit said. “He had it spotted up today. He was painting that outside corner to righties. You could tell by their lack of swings that they weren’t seeing it very well, weren’t picking it up. Everything else was just a bonus.”

Diamond had never faced the Red Sox before, but his first outing at Fenway Park, long considered a graveyard for lefty pitchers, went swimmingly thanks to his insistence on working both sides of the plate.

“It’s mano a mano,” Doumit said. “Everybody’s aware of that monster in left field, but (Diamond) doesn’t waver from his game plan. Doesn’t matter what park we’re playing in, he’s going to pitch his game. He’s going to attack, using his formula.”

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